Maine to try and ban CCW in National Parks (Bradford: to buy, camping)

[deerislesmile]

Originally Posted by kevin5098

I'm in agreement with Robert Heinlein who said
"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life."

I hope nobody ever puts their elbows on your table or confuses the shrimp fork with the salad fork!

[Maineac]

We sold our camp downeast because a "campsite" was used a few hundred feet away. Every Memorial Weekend we'd pack up the kids, a few extra kids and a few friends and kept the tradition going for nearly 25 years. It was fun. Until the NJ and PA plates started showing up and "camping" a hundred yards from the camp. One year we showed up and there were eight tents in our front yard. I booted 'em, but not without an axehandle in my hand. The kids would always go over to the bridge at the outlet and fish for eels at night. One night, the kids were fishing on the bridge, and a 10' fireball shot out of the nearby campsite in the direction of the bridge. The asswipes from NJ/PA or wherever were playing with their guns. The kids were on the bridge, and the flame went straight in their direction. Wife grabbed the Snow and Nealley double bitter and headed for the campsite screaming for the kids. I had to stop her and go get the kids. These morons had the "right to bear arms." But two years running they had to get their guns off at night. We packed up the next day and sold the camp within a year. We had guns at the camp, but what should we have done? Have a confrontation? This was pre-cel phone days and we were 25 miles off Route 9. The Stud Mill Road ruined it.

All that said, anyone that feels they 'need' to carry in a Park is someone I don't want to share the park with. And KLuv is wrong. The 2nd Am is individual, still arguable, since it was probably a 5-4 decision, but it IS getting eroded away contrary to the Constitution. However, it is a weak thing to carry these days given the intent of the 2nd Am. For the PEOPLE to control government. NH has the "right to revolution" written into their Constitution. Thing is, the mondern weaponry of our government, and the fact that civilian powder is intentionally manufactured with a shelf life (my .32 Rem shells, made in the '60's, don't work any more), where military powder has no shelf life, the citizenry possessing "legal" weaponry is kind of a moot point.

You're all twisting the 2nd Amendment a little. Both ways.

[Mac_Muz]

There is a difference evidently between a National Park and a National Forest, a difference I missed, and ended up in a NP with a hand gun, and violated the law.

I live next to the White Mt's NF where shooting and hunting is legal, and so not seeing much difference made the error, but to no harm to me or anyone.

I didn't know it was the law till I read the sign post at Yellow Stone, and since i was a pretty long way from home, I just didn't turn myself in.

A Ban isn't going to work anyway, nor should there be any ban.

For other reasons, since Easter 1999, there hasn't been a day where I went any place un-armed, and there never will be. This includes the post office. I just have a don't ask, don't tell policy, and so far no one has asked and I never told.

The last time I was in Arcadia, was summer 07, and I was as armed then as I would be if I went today. Just the way it is, but no one would know just the same.

[dmyankee]

The Feds have no business owning and regulating Parks. Neither should the State governments, come to think of it.

The best use of Acadia is condos. That tax base alone would put a dent in our deficit.

[kevin5098]

Originally Posted by deerislesmile

I hope nobody ever puts their elbows on your table or confuses the shrimp fork with the salad fork!

I think the manners Mr. Heinlein was referring to were those displayed by muggers, car jackers, etc.

Maineac:

I am sorry that you had a bad experience with irresponsible firearms owners. As usual, it only takes a few idiots to give the rest of us a bad name. The intent of the 2nd ammendment (as well as the other 9) was to preserve what the FF believed was a God given right. Our constitutional rights are eroded much more quickly when we convince ourselves that they are not needed. Civilian powder may have a stated shelf life, but is not made to intentionally degrade. The useful life of ammunition depends greatly on storage conditions. Military ammo is stored in sealed containers, while civilian ammo is often stored in cardboard boxes. Moisture will shorten ammunition lifetime considerably.

Kevin

[Maineac]

Actually, it IS made to intentionally degrade. Track it down. It's true. The premise is to prevent stockpiling by individuals.

[carpero99]

Here on Long Island, hunters have let their basset hounds run wield. Unforttunately they have banded together and attacked a person in Orient Point. So we all must carry an AR-14s for our personal protection. Just a bit of humor!

[carpero99]

This is terrible. Now we coyotes around Columbia University. What are we going to have to do?

[kevin5098]

Originally Posted by Maineac

Actually, it IS made to intentionally degrade. Track it down. It's true. The premise is to prevent stockpiling by individuals.

I can't find a single source to verify your claim. Below is a post from another forum that eloquently explains why this is not a practical idea.

Ain't going to happen for numerous reasons, some of which have been touched on by sandwarrior.

They don't actually exist, but imagine, for a minute, that there actually WERE such a thing as gunpowder (or primers) that degraded slowly over time.

If at manufacture, 100% of the rounds worked and at (say) 5 years 0% of the rounds were supposed to work, then that means that somewhere in between manufacture and the "expiration" date, you'd have boxes of ammo that contained ammo where SOME of the rounds won't go off.

Which ones? I don't know. . .and I don't know how you could know short of destructive testing (ie either shooting the round or taking out the powder and testing it. . .effectively rending the round useless).

So *BY DESIGN* you have created a situation where you're going to have some "duds" in every box of ammo, but not be able to identify them.

That situation would be ABSOLUTELY intolerable. No soldier, cop, security guard, nor private citizen who trusts their life to firearms could ever deliberately live with that.

Anyone who made ammo like that would open themselves up to massive liability, as people's hunts and lives are ruined from rounds that didn't go off.

Further, realistically, this isn't a binary situation where the rounds either work fine or don't work at all. Much more plausible would be a situation where the powder slowly lost its effectiveness over time.

That means you would start off with rounds with 100% power, and 5 years later have rounds with 0% power.

In between, you'd have rounds with LESS THAN NORMAL and likely UNPREDICTABLE power levels.

Again, this would be a completely unacceptable situation. Not only would all accuracy be destroyed, but rounds like that would be INTRINSICALLY unsafe, since a. you could get "squibs" (where the bullet doesn't leave the barrel), b. you couldn't predict with certainty where the bullet was going when you pulled the trigger, and c. the bullets may lack enough energy to do what they need to do (eg kill game humanely).

Gimping bullets this way just makes absolutely no sense at all.

So, while the gun-haters have all sorts of schemes to try and slowly erode the average American's ability to own weapons (see below), this particular one isn't one of them.

[flycessna]

Originally Posted by elston

IMHO carring guns in Acadia would be like carrying guns into Disney Land. Constitutional rights for a militia have nothing to do with threatening a group of people eating pop-overs on the well manicured lawns of Arcadia. Its not about machismo....its about civility.

I love how you automatically equate someone carrying a firearm to "threatening" people.. There are ZERO stats to support such a crazy leap in assumptions. in fact I could cite many stats that say just the oppiset. I could carry my gun around you all day and you would never know it

To think I carry a gun cause it makes me feel cool??? or machismo reasons just shows that people on your side of the issue have no clue.